From the Ground Up

This feature essay for April’s Give Us This Day was written immediately after the funeral of Tom Stegman, SJ, in 2023. I’ve lost three more friends in the months since. I’m not alone—you too have lost friends and loved ones, and you too have had times when you felt that the losses just kept coming. These are the days when we decide if we really believe what we say we believe, the days we hear each other whispering and encouraging, “We are an Easter people.” These are the days when we dig deeply within ourselves to find an Amen, even an Alleluia—when perhaps we finally understand what it means to say that death and resurrection are a single event, that we can speak them in a single breath, and share them with one another as a single gift. Happy Easter, all.

From the Ground Up

There was a man named Jesus. Born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, preached in the land of Israel. In a time of political and religious tension, Jesus of Nazareth saw the writing on the wall. His work was coming to an end. One night after a meal, he walked the countryside, one foot in front of the other, to a grove of olive trees, a place he liked to go. He had a terrible decision to make, a terrible night to pass. He threw himself on the ground and lay face down in the dirt of the garden (Mark 14:35).

There were two women named Mary. One foot in front of the other, they were on their way to visit the body of a dead man. Wracked with grief, their sole consolation was the duty before them, to care for his body, the body of Jesus of Nazareth. And suddenly he appeared before them—himself but more, alive but more—risen, glorious, eternal. They fell to the ground in belief and disbelief, the two so often bleeding into each other (Matt 28:9).

There was a man named Saul. He traveled along a well-worn road, the road from Jerusalem to Damascus, on his way to stifle faith in a man named Jesus. One foot in front of the other, with zeal and determination, he walked. He walked until a flash of light and a voice like a waterfall—the voice of Jesus of Nazareth—knocked him to the ground. Face down in the dirt, life as he knew it fell apart as the sound and light scattered all around him (Acts 9:3-4).

Scripture insists, Scripture repeats: on the ground is not a bad place to be. This is the place where we grapple with life—and death. This is the place where we grieve and fight—the place where we believe, doubt, believe again—the place of resolve and resilience. The place we are remade.

Jesus stood up and set his face to Golgotha, dusting himself off in the center of that beautiful grove of trees, announcing to his drowsy disciples: “The hour has come!”

The two women stood up, letting go of the feet of Jesus. They dusted themselves off and stood tall. They looked him in the eye and knew. It was time to tell the Good News.

Saul stood up. He saw nothing but darkness. But within, all was light. He dusted himself off—the dirt of that road still clinging to his face and feet. That blessed dirt, the dirt of Damascus, that place of being utterly and completely changed.

Scripture insists, Scripture repeats: no matter where we fall, no matter how long we lie there, no matter the grief or fight that took us down, the dirt beneath us is sacred ground. It is from this place that we will stand again—ourselves but more, alive but more. Dusting ourselves off, we will walk on—all light within—one foot in front of the other.

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 Amy Ekeh, from the April 2024 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023). Used with permission.

Christ and the Garden of Olives, Paul Gauguin (1889)

The Unbearable Tension of Hope

The essay below was published in the October issue of Give Us This Day as commentary on this week’s lectionary — especially the readings from Romans on Monday and Tuesday, but also looking forward to the celebrations of All Saints and All Souls on Wednesday and Thursday.

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I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing
compared with the glory to be revealed. (Rom 8:18)

St. Paul was a master of opposites. I can remember my New Testament professor making wonderful lists of Pauline opposites on a chalkboard, back when chalkboards were a thing. What a wonderful list he would have made (and probably did!) with the readings we have this week from Romans 8 (Monday and Tuesday). In Column A, we have this present time, characterized by: flesh, death, spirit of slavery, fear, and suffering. In Column B, we have what is to be revealed, with its corresponding opposites: Spirit, life, spirit of adoption, hope, and glory. I can almost hear the spirited scratch of chalk and see those dust particles flying!

Although Paul suffered plenty of rejection as a preacher, there is a reason his gospel took hold and still speaks to us today. Paul knew all too well that suspended feeling each of us experiences every day of our lives—the “eager expectation,” the waiting, the endurance, the groaning—the way it feels to live in both columns.

Paul’s gospel was about hope. Not a shallow hope meant to numb or appease, but a “prophet-who-has-seen-the-Promised-Land” kind of hope, a living witness. Paul’s understanding of salvation was primarily apocalyptic; he was convinced that the present and the future intersect and collide. The present time is moving inexorably toward a future that is rich and overflowing with glory. In the meantime, we “groan.” And yet! In the meantime, we already taste God’s glory as children of God who live in a time of incredible promise: as “joint heirs with Christ” we will inherit everything Christ himself has inherited. The first inheritance is resurrected life.

Paul’s opposites express the almost unbearable tension of this apocalyptic hope. Although salvation is playing out in our lives every day, indeed every moment, it has not played out in its fullness. Not yet. But if one column of our chalk­board list could be etched in gold, it would be Column B, with its one foot firmly in the present and its full lean into an abundant future. Indeed, Paul insists that “the sufferings of this present time” are “as nothing” (“a small price to pay,” translates Brendan Byrne, SJ). Elsewhere Paul insists that “this slight momentary affliction” will yield “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17).

Sometimes the “sufferings of this present time” overwhelm us. Death, fear, and futility still have their way with us. And yet it is Paul’s vision—one that was acquired, let’s not forget, on a dusty road to Damascus when he encountered the Risen One in a blaze of light—that sustains us. The “glory to be revealed” is none other than our own transformative encoun­ters with God as joint heirs of the Risen Lord—a glory we can already see, taste, and touch, but which we do not yet fully experience.

The saints and souls we celebrate on Wednesday (All Saints) and Thursday (All Souls) are living witnesses of this light-filled vision. Having lived the opposites, they are icons of the hope etched in gold—a hallmark of Paul’s gospel and of every Christian life.

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Amy Ekeh, from the October 2023 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023). Used with permission.

Postscript: My New Testament professor was Fr. Frank Matera at The Catholic University of America, now retired in my home diocese, the Archdiocese of Hartford, where I’m blessed to see him regularly. He taught me so much about reading the New Testament, and I continue to count on his mentorship and friendship.

I See You

We thought we were prepared to read Genesis with our sons. It’s not as though we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. And honestly, it wasn’t the fact that God essentially drowns every human being except one family in Genesis 7 that raised eyebrows. It was Noah getting drunk and naked in Genesis 9 that really got their attention. And then, of course, there was Genesis 16—Abram’s wife telling him to sleep with her maid Hagar to conceive a child. When we read that, Eli said, “This has me thinking about Noah getting drunk.”

But then we read about Hagar. . . Hagar, pregnant, running away. Hagar, who never asked for this. Hagar . . . who is every person who feels unmoored, unloved, unseen.

But God saw Hagar. And in Scripture, when God sees, God loves, God protects, God promises. And as the story goes, “To the Lord who spoke to her she gave a name, saying, ‘You are God who sees me’” (Gen 16:13).

Then I remembered why we were reading Genesis. Because even a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old need to hear and know that no matter how insignificant we may feel or how bleak things may look, we are seen by the one who created it all. The glance of the one who is both lover and beloved is eternal (Song of Songs 2:4; 4:9). This is God’s name, after all, a name given by Hagar: God-Who-Sees-Me.

We know God by this name. Like Hagar, this gaze, this glance, has fallen upon us in the wilderness, by the side of the road. It has fallen upon us in hospitals, at gravesides, in bedrooms and kitchens. It falls upon us when we lie awake at night, when we worry, when we grieve, when we’re numb.

We may not always feel “ravished” by this glance like the lover in the Song of Songs. But after years of living and loving (and reading Genesis), we know. Our God is the one who sees.

Hagar Kneeling Before the Angel, Rembrandt

Lean into the Yearning: A Reflection for the Fourth Week in Advent

The following reflection refers to the Mass readings found here.

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The Bible can be a heartbreaking book. It’s about people, after all. Every story, every narrative, every parable—they may surprise and puzzle us, they may challenge us, but they always speak to something deep within us. We know these stories. We live them every day.

Today’s readings tell the stories of two couples who yearned so hard for something they did not have. They had no child. The painful word used to describe this situation is “barren.” We all know what barren means. It means lifeless, desolate, empty, dry. It means hopeless. It means heartbreak.

The yearning of the wife of Manoah, of Elizabeth and Zechariah, we feel it deep in our gut. We have all yearned this hard and come up barren. We have all felt dry and desolate. Barrenness is not only about the presence or absence of children. It is about being human. It is about yearning.

The sacred answer that emerges from this barrenness is the promise of divine faithfulness. And whether the promise is for children or salvation, it always leads to new life. This story of longing and fulfillment, of desiring and promising, of palpable need and abundant gift, is the story of the Bible from creation to gospel—from the barren earth, void and lifeless, to the incarnation, God-literally-with-us.

As Advent leans toward Christmas, we lean even harder into this yearning. And just there—on the horizon, where the days begin to lengthen—we can see it: a child is born, the fulfillment of all our yearning.

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Amy Ekeh, “Lean into the Yearning” from the December 2022 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022). Used with permission.

A sun dog on a wintry day in central Minnesota. Photo by Hans Christoffersen.

Grappling with Violence in the Bible

In the first chapters of the book of Genesis, God creates a beautiful, harmonious world. In Genesis 4, a man kills his brother. And in Genesis 6, God floods the earth, having determined that it is the only way to stop the overwhelmingly violent tendencies of the human race.

The violence of these early chapters of Genesis bleeds throughout the Bible, a book we read and pray with, a book we proclaim in our sanctuaries, a book we revere as an authoritative missive of human and divine love. This violence can confuse and even scandalize us. Didn’t God call for an end to killing (Gen 9:6)? Didn’t Jesus command that we love our enemies (Luke 6:27)? Isn’t peace the ultimate promise of God (Isa 25:25)?

Here are a few things to keep in mind when we encounter violent imagery in the Bible:

1. Ancient living was tough. Really tough. Many violent stories in Scripture that cause us to recoil in horror are reflections of the time and place in which they were told and written. Violence was a harsh reality in ancient cultures, where food was scarce and neighboring tribes clashed on a regular basis. Depictions of Israel wiping out entire tribes at God’s command (e.g., Deut 2:34; certainly exaggerated accounts, see below) or Judith beheading Holofernes (Jdt 13:8) are not simply examples of gratuitous violence. They are reflections of a time when people resorted to violence in order to survive.
   

2. People aren’t perfect. Even people of faith. Only one person in Scripture is called “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam 13:14), and that is David—the same David who had a man killed so he could marry his wife. Two of Jesus’ disciples—in fact, two of his inner circle—asked Jesus if they should “call down fire from heaven” to “consume” some Samaritans who were not welcoming to them (Luke 9:54). The Bible reflects life: all people, not just bad ones, are capable of violence.
   

3. Know what kind of text you’re reading. One of the most famous examples of violence in Scripture is Psalm 137, a prayer that ends with a call for revenge upon Israel’s enemy Babylon, even going so far as to say, “Blessed the one who seizes your [Babylon’s] children / and smashes them against the rock” (v. 9). That certainly doesn’t sound like the appropriate response of a person of faith! And it isn’t. But it is a fully human response, one that expresses the pain of an exiled people who themselves have experienced violence and death at the hands of their enemies. After all, this is not a treatise on how to act or how to forgive. It is a psalm—a prayer, a poem, a cry of the heart. Keeping this in mind helps us understand that the Bible is not endorsing this attitude, but neither is it shying away from the human reality of pain and the natural desire for revenge.

   There are other examples of violence in the Bible where knowing the genre, or the type of text we are reading, is helpful, whether we are reading an epic biblical history (where violent escapades were often greatly embellished) or hyperbole (purposeful exaggeration, e.g., Jesus’ suggestion that we cut off our hands or feet, or pluck out our eyes, in order to stop ourselves from sinning; Mark 9:43-47).
   

4. It’s in both testaments. When reading the Bible, it’s important to avoid the misconception that violence is found in the Old Testament but not in the New. The book of Revelation is one of the most violent books in the Bible! And some of its violence is wrought by none other than the Lamb of God, the risen Christ. This is symbolic language, to be sure, but its author intentionally chose it, and we are left to reckon with it.
   

5. Give it to God. Gut-wrenching pleas in Scripture like the psalmist’s bitter cry for revenge (137:9) or the martyrs’ cry for vengeance in Revelation (6:10) may upset us, but they also have an important lesson to share. Those who cry out—who have themselves been treated violently—are not seeking vengeance on their own. They have not taken matters into their own hands. They may wish violence upon their enemies, but they place those wishes into God’s hands. This is what faith does. It doesn’t necessarily change the way we feel, but it does change the way we respond. God can handle our honesty, our emotions, even our hate. We can give these things to God and be free.
   

The Bible is not always easy to read. But we never need to ignore parts of Scripture or be embarrassed by them. They have the power—raw as it may be—to shine light on the complexities of human life and relationships. They remind us that we are a people in need of a saving God. They are part of the story of our salvation.

This article was originally written for Little Rock Connections, the online newsletter of Little Rock Scripture Study (Liturgical Press). Published with permission.

Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio